Yeah, You Know Giallo — But There’s Another European Horror Movement You're Missing Out On

At the cusp of the '60s and '70s of the last century, European genre cinema was having a moment. From Swedish exploitation movies (also known as Sensationsfilms) to the great tradition of Italian Giallo, European horrors and thrillers have given us countless examples of creative, aesthetic macabre. Yet, one horror tradition remains criminally obscure and underrated, despite certain titles and authors from it having achieved cult fame — the golden age of Spanish horror. Dubbed Fantaterror for its tendency to combine supernatural stories and artistic devices meant to induce fear, this unique movement often utilized existing tropes and monsters from the horror canon, but found creative solutions to make them feel relevant. From the beginning, Fantaterror was inextricably tied to the country's past and present, as well as the state and limitations of national cinema. For a long time, Francoist censorship famously forbade the depiction of many things and the expression of many thoughts, in turn, making certain Spanish directors proficient in using their version of Aesopian language that often involved lots of blood, pretty explicit gore, and vivid psychosexual motives.